The city will soon have 5,000 complaint boxes in public places to act as the eyes and ears of the police and help them maintain law and order. People can tip off the police and give information through the boxes to be installed at hotels and ATM kiosks.

Dedicated Servants of India, a city-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), led by 92-year-old retired army school teacher M. Sharif, is supporting the police by providing 5,000 such boxes.

According to Mr. Sharif, with 100 police stations in Banglaore struggling to maintain law and order, the complaint boxes would help in building local intelligence network effectively, he says.

He said many residents were apprehensive about approaching the police even to pass on information. Such information could remain suppressed. Now, they can remain anonymous and at the same time tip off the police, he said. The complaint boxes would act as deterrent and instil a sense of fear among anti-social elements, he said.

The information could be related to anything. For example, it could be a complaint against a government official or a civic representative. The police officer can pass it on to the department concerned. “Repeated complaints against an official would draw the attention of higher ups,” he said adding this would also improve accountability among officials. The letters in the complaint box would be picked up by the beat police and delivered to the station house officer for action.

Each police station would get 50 boxes which would be placed at ATM centres, hotels, schools and colleges.

The NGO with the help of philanthropists has so far collected 2,000 boxes.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Kamal Pant termed it a good idea of police-public partnership. “We have already started this scheme as a pilot project in some parts of the city and it is doing well. We are planning to cover the entire city soon,” he said.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bangalore / by Imran Gowhar / Bangalore – November 13th, 2013